Met exhibit a celebration of free-spirit style

The Heiress

Posted: Sunday, May 09, 2010

By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL

NEW YORK - The American woman's claim to fame in the fashion world mirrors what the country's roots are built on: freedom.

From the heiresses in the 1890s to the screen sirens of the 1940s - and, really, into the 21st century - it was American style icons who helped move fashion forward with new standards of beauty, sexuality, power and art, even if many of the best couturiers lived and worked across the Atlantic.

The Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute celebrates this influence in its new exhibit "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity."

"Whenever you think of America, you think about emancipation, modernity and progress and American women because of their clothes are the ultimate symbol of progress and modernity," said curator Andrew Bolton.

But while he could have singled out the most influential tastemakers of their day, that might have minimized the overall impact he thinks Americans had on global trends. "I didn't want to pick out specific women. I wanted to celebrate the archetypes of American femininity," Bolton added.

Visitors enter through a photographic recreation of Manhattan's Washington Square arch, which, coming from the end of the 19th century, notes the complementary explosion of local architecture and apparel at that time.

The first gallery represents the high, expensive, elaborate style of the young nation's wealthiest women. They still bought their clothes in Paris, Bolton explained, but their look - and the American spin they put on it - was exported back to Europe via the characters in Edith Wharton and Henry James novels.

To best show off the heiress' va-va-voom silhouette, Bolton selected low-cut ballgowns with tiny, nipped waists; provocative low bustlines; and rich fabrics. One of the most stunning came from the French House of Worth. The blue-and-cream gown was decorated with delicate mousseline and butterfly-themed embroidery.

The heiresses' independent streak whet the appetite for the next generation's more carefree style that only would be furthered with the athletic Gibson Girl, a creation of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, followed by the liberal bohemian, tough suffragist and fun-loving flapper. Then came the Hollywood starlet, who, with her mix of glamour and sophistication, has remained a muse for fashion designers around the world.

Back in 1924, the French designer Jean Patou specifically sought out Americans as models, running an ad in The New York Times looking for women who had to be "smart, slender, with well-shaped feet and ankles and refined of manner."

That solidified the American woman's place in the fashion hierarchy, said Bolton.

"What interested me a lot is the actual history; it's about the American woman going through history and how she projected herself," said Patrick Robinson, Gap's executive president of global design, who served as the co-chair for exhibit's star-studded opening gala that featured such tastemakers as Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Lopez.

"To me, it's the idea that she can say, 'I can express myself!' It's pretty powerful when you look at it like that," Robinson says. "From the flapper period through the screen-siren period - that's when it changed. From our films, that's when the world saw American fashion, American attitude, and they said, 'I want to be that.' And that's still the way it is today."

The exhibit ends with a video mash-up of familiar faces, past and present, who collectively embody the strong spirit woven into the look of the historical muses. Jackie Kennedy, Lady Gaga, Marilyn Monroe, Queen Latifah, Gloria Steinem and Michelle Obama are among the dozens of women whose faces flash on the walls to the soundtrack of - what else - Lenny Kravitz's cover of "American Woman."

The archetypes and the clothes, mostly from the Met's recent acquisition of the Brooklyn Museum's Costume Collection, that represent them:

While the grande dames of high society often wore black, the younger heiresses - many newly married, others on the prowl for a husband - favored lighter colors. Examples of her gowns include a black one embroidered with black celluloid pailettes and shamrocks trimmed with gold lame and lace, and an icy blue one brocaded with white and blue stars, silver sequins and chiffon clouds.

This lanky, sporty style was introduced to the world in Gibson illustration in an 1890 issue of Life magazine. The women inspired by this image took up swimming, tennis, riding horses, biking and ice skating, and they wore more practical fabrics such as cotton broadcloth and wool twill. While they kept their corsets on, they adopted some menswear looks, too, including button-down shirts.

Off with the corset! This liberated woman threw herself into cultivating the fine arts, and a byproduct of that was more creative, less restrictive clothing. An appreciation of details, including Art Nouveau prints and lace, was combined with a keenness of the jewel-tone Orientalist palette. Influences of classicism and even medievalism also are seen.

World War I furthered the suffragist movement as thousands of American women performed wartime service. They wore some military-inspired looks but maintained some femininity, which they thought could be used to their advantage. Their symbolic colors were purple, white, green and gold.

Flappers smoked cigarettes, drank gin, went to work and partied at night - and had the wardrobe to do all that and more. Considered a turning point in fashion because the flapper was among the first American muses to be mimicked abroad, she made the most of her long, lean shape with chemise dresses, shorter hemlines and Art Deco beading that evoked the skyscrapers that also were becoming a worldwide symbol of the U.S. boom.

The Hollywood star was more sophisticated and sexy than the flirtatious flapper, and she eagerly embraced her more shapely figure.

The bias-cut silhouette that now is a staple of the red-carpet was a favorite then for the same reason: It clings to curves, while maintaining a glamorous, graceful vibe with little need for adornment.

The "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity" exhibit runs through Aug. 15.